


When Dawn Comes

by A_Curious_Crow



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, F/M, Grief/Mourning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-06
Updated: 2014-12-06
Packaged: 2018-02-28 07:53:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2724566
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/A_Curious_Crow/pseuds/A_Curious_Crow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's been three years since Corypheus, and things have settled into normalcy and the Thedas is recovering from it's decade of chaos with help from the Inquisition. A village calls on the Inquisitor to help rid it of the High Dragon threatening it, and after these years and the battles they have fought, Cullen felt secure in watching Lavellan and her companions leave to fight it.<br/>But death always waits for you to feel safe before it strikes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	When Dawn Comes

The plea for help was like many others they had gotten before, and although High Dragons weren't exactly common fare, they were something Lavellan had faced a handful of times before, and come out largely victorious if one could look past the mild singeing and soot on armor.

  
When he bid goodbye to her, the love and the light of his life, it was early morning with lips hesitant to part from one another. Cullen had watched her from their bed as she strapped on her armor that was crafted by the scales of the previous dragons she had slain. Razier had been bathed in the soft golden sunlight as the sun rose, and it would be an image Cullen would hold with him until eternity at the Maker's side came for him too. She had come back to him only briefly, lips meeting his once again but more chaste than before, a proper goodbye kiss, with parting words to not drown in reports before she got back to pull him out.

  
His love for her oft struck at such times of leaving, and that time had been no exception as it nearly took the air from his lungs and she left their quarters and he stared out the large glass windows and looked at the glowing snow covered mountains, and wondered how he had gotten so lucky to find the one he loved so completely and loved him in his scarred entirety just as completely.

  
It was barely over a week, the days passing with a methodical march of work and duty, overseeing the recruits, checking their soldiers, and attending to matters that required his attention. Cullen always despised these long trips that took Lavellan away from him for weeks at a time, but he was used to them at least. This time was only slightly different, a itching unease at the back of his mind, which was pushed aside in favor of doing something productive instead of fretting like a worrisome hen.

  
The sound of a horse running as quickly as the rider could goad it sounded loud enough to carry even to Cullen's office from the Skybridge. He had debated coming out and seeing what the fuss was about, but while he was hesitating it was decided for him.

  
"Commander! It's Dorian, he returned alone and says something went wrong on the hunt!" The assistant was pushed aside at Cullen rushed out of his office and to the main gate before his mind even processed the words.  
There was a sizable crowed around Dorian and the grey hart Lavellan had given him some time ago, that now seemed exhausted as if Dorian had ran it all through the mountains at the speed he had been going over the Skybridge. Dorian himself was shouting commands at a select few to get healers standing by. Cullen shouldered his way to the front of the crowd and went straight for the Tevinter as others ran off to comply to his demands.

  
"Dorian what happened? Where's the Razier?" Dorian's eyes slid to Cullen and something in the normally so witty and annoyingly carefree man's gaze spoke the truth of it to Cullen, but he had to know, had to hear the words.  
"We found the dragon, but the fight... it didn't go as planned. The dragon focused on Razier, and it was too strong, we couldn't get out of there fast enough." The words left the mage in a rush, and it was clear to see he was in a panic, but desperately trying to keep it together.

  
"Is. She. Alive." Cullen ground out the words and dreaded the answer.

  
"Yes, but-" Cullen nearly felt his legs give out at the answer, it meant there was still hope, his relief was so great it was all he could do to keep on his feet. Dorian was cut off by the sounds of three other animals crossing the Skybridge, it was obvious one of the animals, the riding halla Cullen had acquired from the Lavellan clan for Razier only this last year, had no rider and was trailing behind Cassandra's and Iron Bull's warhorses instead of on point where Razier always rode.

  
The healers that had been summoned ahead of time by Dorian rushed to meet the warriors as the rode in, and it was only when they stopped and surrounded Bull that Cullen could faintly see the small unconscious hunched over shape in front of him, eclipsed by his huge frame, but barely staying on the animal. Lavellen was swiftly and gently pulled off the horse by healers and helped by Bull, it was then that Cullen also came forward to see the woman he loved but he only saw glimpses as healers swarmed around the Inquisitor as they put her on the stretcher and took her away. The few glimpses he had caught however were far more than just mild singeing and soot that had been custom from the other fights; the armor had been rent and black, or possibly it was flesh that was black, it had been impossible to tell. Cullen and Razier's companions that had accompanied her trailed after the healers and up to where they took her to Razier and Cullen's quarters where they could tend to her.

  
The decision to stay out of the room had been agonizing, everything in him was pulling him to her side, to watch over her and help her, but her knew he wouldn't be able to help and would likely only get in the way. Iron Bull, Cassandra and Dorian stayed with him in the hallway outside the Inquisitor's quarters, all looking various degrees of worry and grief. Cullen wouldn't have been able to say how long it was of anxious pacing and watching people run in and out of the room where Razier lay, but when they all started to file out with solemn looks and bowed heads Cullen could feel his heart sink and his throat close up.

  
"We have done all we can, it is in the hands of the Maker now." The lead healer had a old face, one that spoke of many lost patients and the certainty of one more soon to come. "She has not woken once, but be with her, may it ease her spirit."

  
Cullen stiffly nodded and all but sprinted into the room that had been filled with love and light and now spoke of creeping dread and death. In their bed was Razier, she was naked it seemed except for the white bandages covering the near entirety of her torso and the blanket pulled up to her hips, the bandages already were slowly being soaked red, but if when piles of red cloth pulled from the room had been any marker the bleeding had slowed greatly. Cullen tried not to think of if it was because she was healing or just barely had any blood left.

  
He heard the sound of a chair being picked up and dimly noticed Bull setting it beside Razier before Cullen automatically sat in it before slowly and gently, as if handling glass, picked up her pale hand and held it between his own as if attempting to will life into her.

  
They all stayed like that for a time, Cassandra and Bull both left muttering something about needing to see to their own wounds and possibly catching some sleep, but at least once a hour they returned separately to check in on their leader. Dorian stayed out on the balcony mostly, possibly wanting to give Cullen space or just not able to handle the atmosphere in the room, but unable to stray far.

  
Cullen just sat and watched the slow rise and fall of Razier's chest, and memorized the vallaslin, or blood writing tattoos that intricately covered her face and marked her as one of 'the people' as she had explained to him one night as they had laid sleepily in eachothers embrace as a blizzard had howled outside. Now the air was still and suffocating but Cullen couldn't bear leave her, it was unthinkable, so he just squeezed her hand a little tighter and begged her both silently and aloud to wake up, and begged and cursed the Maker, as well as even Razier's own gods if by chance they were more merciful than his own.

  
"I should say that our dear Inquisitor was awake for some time before blood loss, I assume, forced her into this sleep and in that time she guilted me into promise to carry a message to you if she did die." Dorian leaned against the doorway to the balcony, and Cullen looked at him briefly and saw the struggle on the man's face to keep it and his voice from breaking and crumbling and showing the depths of his despair. "She is surprisingly proficient at that you know." His attempt at humor was without heart and fell flat.

  
"Razier will not die, if anyone could survive this it will be her." Maybe if he said it enough and forced himself to believe it then the Maker would take pity and let it come true.

  
"That's true, but if she were to awake and find out how close she came to death and then learned I never told you, then I would never hear the end of it." Again a small upward twitch on Dorian's lips came at the attempt at humor, but then faded quickly. "She wanted me to tell you that she loved you and not to loose yourself because she won't be here to pull you back. How cliche I know-" In the middle of the quip Dorian's voice broke and he spun and retreated back to the balcony, and as Cullen turned over her words to him he broke too.

  
He sobbed uncontrollably and curled in on himself around her hand as he shook and howled, his fear of loosing her and despair crashing down in a uncontrollable wave. When the tears finally stopped coming he just leaned over the bed and once again resumed his silent vigil over her, and the entire time she did not stir once.

  
It was when the sky was turning gray, right before dawn but the room lightened enough to not need the candles that had burned low. It was then that Cullen saw her breathing stop and felt his own stop as well.

  
He wondered in the back of his mind if he may have made a sound, as Dorian awoke from his slumber at the corner of the room and went suddenly to the hallway, likely to inform the healers.

  
Cullen knew he should leave and let them collect her body for a funeral, but he couldn't let himself move, not yet, and he sat there as the sun came up and soft gold light filled the room in a cold cruel mockery of their last morning together.

  
Eventually he did leave her body, it was cold and no longer held the soul of the woman he had loved so dearly and so completely that he now felt gutted and hollow. He went to the battlements where they first kissed and just stared out at the ice covered mountains, mind hauntingly blank with only a few memories of their love running though from time to time, and those hurt more than any blade or even demon could do. An assistant came up hesitantly later in the day while the sun was setting, their face twisted in grief as well. It seemed all mourned for the Herald of Andraste.

  
"The was an argument on what to do with the Inquisitor's body, and it was decided you should get final say." Cullen hadn't thought that far ahead, though his surprise echoed dimly like all other sensations, as if the passing had taken even his capacity for emotion.

  
"Razier-" his voice broke and quivered at her name, "she would have wanted a Dalish's funeral. The garden, in the heart of it, and someone must find a tree, a seed or sapling to plant over her. Also, find someone to preform the funeral rights." They had talked briefly about it, just one of the many things she talked of when he asked of her culture.

  
The funeral was the next evening, the night he had spent tossing in turning and switching from nightmares to memories and he didn't know which were worse, the day he spent again on the battlements, but also brought himself to write a message to clan Lavellen about the passing of their former daughter.

  
The sun set as her body way laid in the ground, and it was given to Cullen to put the sapling over her thinly soil coated body as the rites and prayers for the dead were spoken in her true language.

  
It was there, in the cool breeze in the ancient castle's garden, that the Herald of Andraste would lay in slumber forever.

**Author's Note:**

> This was plaugeing me for a while now, so I thought I would inflict it upon you all, I hope you enjoyed it!  
> It has also been posted on my tumblr 666virgin-sacrifices-on-the-wall.tumblr.com


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